July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, said it plans to appoint former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal as ambassador to the U.S., the kingdom's first change in the post since Ronald Reagan was president.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry announced today that Prince Bandar bin Sultan resigned as Saudi envoy to Washington for ``private reasons'' after rendering ``outstanding services'' to the Arab country since 1983. Bandar cultivated deep access to the White House, including regular visits to the Bush family homes.
Bandar, who is close to President George Bush, the current president's father, is a former Saudi Air Force officer who became defense attaché, then ambassador, following his involvement in procuring U.S. fighter aircraft in the late 1970s, according to his official embassy biography. He later became the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington.
Turki, who is ambassador to the U.K., was educated in Washington and has a history of working with the U.S. intelligence community. He will come to the U.S. as the Bush administration attempts to spread democracy in the oil-rich Middle East as a counter-weight to violent Islamist movements.
Ned Walker, president of the Middle East Institute in Washington and a former U.S. diplomat, said in an interview that Bandar was a symbol of ``the close, warm, fuzzy ties with the administration. Turki is not that person and will not have that relationship.''
Turki, 60, met several times with Osama bin Laden in the context of Saudi support for Muslim fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He later mediated between the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Saudi government.
Advised Presidents
President George W. Bush issued a statement through his press secretary today that thanked Bandar, 56, for his tenure. ``In troubled times U.S. presidents past and present have relied upon Bandar's advice,'' the statement said. ``In good times, they have enjoyed his wit, charm and humor.''
While Turki may face questions in Washington about his contacts with militant figures including bin Laden, the fundamental economic issues on the U.S.-Saudi agenda ensure that the change in chief diplomat may have little direct impact on the relationship.
``Our interests drive us together,'' Walker said. ``They have no interest in seeing oil pricing going out of the roof. We don't have any interest in alienating the one country that can keep the price under control.''
Oil Ties
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, during an April visit to President Bush's Crawford ranch, offered the U.S. no immediate steps to relieve high gasoline prices, pitching instead a months-old plan to boost oil production capacity by 1.5 million barrels a day by the end of the decade.
The country has 260 billion barrels of proven reserves, or ``well over a century's worth of oil'' at current production rates, Abdallah Jum'ah, president of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, said on July 11 in Beijing.
The Sept. 11 attacks carried out by 15 Saudis among 19 operatives ushered in a period of tension in U.S.-Saudi relations. Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, was sent in front of the cameras in Washington to explain Saudi policies in confronting Islamist violence.
While U.S. officials praise Saudi cooperation in combating militant Islamists, the U.S. last month warned Saudi officials to step up their efforts against human trafficking and in October listed the country, the home of Islam's most holy sites, as one that routinely denies its citizens religious freedom as it enforces the rules of the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam.
During a Middle East trip last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice protested the arrest of three dissidents and the disenfranchisement of women.
Fighting Terrorism
Rice then told Saudi reporters ``the story of what the Saudi government is doing on the counterterrorism front, the arrests that are being made, the cells that are being taken down, is that it gives people confidence that the Saudi government is really taking this counterterrorism action very seriously.''
Turki, who studied at Georgetown University in Washington, is the nephew if the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, and brother of Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal. Walker said the appointment had to do more with internal familial issues than with U.S. considerations.
In a 2002 PBS interview, a period when there was frequent criticism of Saudi Arabia in the U.S. media following the Sept. 11 attacks, Turki blamed the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, for what he described as perpetrating an anti-Saudi campaign.
`Enemies of the Kingdom'
``I believe within the United States that there are enemies of the kingdom who would like to see the relationship between Saudi Arabia and United States affected by this situation,'' he said, according to a transcript.
News that the Saudi royal family had accepted Bandar's resignation came as the U.S. warned its citizens in Saudi Arabia of a possible terrorist attack in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabian security forces have been battling for more than two years against suspected sympathizers of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, who have targeted Westerners in a bid to threaten the oil industry.
